


Love and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

by larklure



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Larissa "Lardo" Duan/Shitty Knight, Not Beta Read, POV Eric "Bitty" Bittle, Post-Divorce, Under the Tuscan Sun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:42:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23641783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larklure/pseuds/larklure
Summary: After a shocking divorce causes Eric's life to go stagnant, Shitty and Lardo offer him a "Yeah, you're free!" present: a ten day tour of Tuscany. Reluctant to go but enticed by the chance to finally experience Italian food at it's source, Eric goes, not expecting to end up purchasing a villa in picturesque Cortona, Italy.This is a work in progress, inspired by the lovely 2003 movie adaptation of "Under the Tuscan Sun" by Frances Mayes
Relationships: Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Love and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

**Author's Note:**

> To those who may be worried, Eric is NOT divorcing Jack, just some other asshole who wasn't worth it.
> 
> Find more of me at [ Larklure ](http://larklure.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr and Pillowfort!

There was a laundry list of practical skills Eric had learned during his stint as an internet personality-turned-cook book writer, including perhaps an equal list of kitchen-related injuries and how to avoid them. There was nothing, he learned, that burned you more than a divorce made public on the internet.

That was the catch to the whole being semi-famous thing, wasn’t it? When you made your livelihood sharing your personal business with the wider world, they would inevitably want to know what happened when it all went belly up. 

—

“He wants the house” the lawyer said rather matter of factly, as though the terms of Eric’s pending divorce were no more emotional a process than putting a pot of water on to boil or changing the laundry. Eric couldn’t quite understand what she’d said the first time, and the lawyer had to say his name in repetition before he could muster a response. 

“He wants the house? I’m sorry, I’m just, at a loss for words I think.”

“It’s still up for decision, Eric. And there’s plenty else to discuss. But it’s important you know that he’s offered to relinquish a majority of his share of your investments. A payout equal to the value of the house, I’m assuming, though we’ll have to see how hard he pushes, how badly he really wants it.”

Gloria, or Glen, Eric can’t seem to remember the lawyer's name now that he’s in the middle of it, looked over her glasses, and across the ledger splayed about the desk, to see Eric’s reaction. 

“This could be a good thing, Eric. The going price for that house right now is,” she glanced down at one of the sheets in front of her, “Well, it is not an insubstantial amount.”

“He wants the house,” Eric found himself repeating, moreso numb to feeling than anything else. “We’d bought that house with money I’d borrowed from my parents, before anything we’d planned had taken off. We even renovated it, when I’d gotten the second book deal, when it seemed like, like the Food Network…”

Gladis (that was her name, such a charming name for a divorce lawyer) watched him for a bit before she continued. Her lack of emotion was beginning to frustrate Eric, who perhaps was beginning to feel (or had felt from the start) that this was all too unreal. Shouldn’t everyone else be freaking out? Shouldn’t the world be ending? He was getting divorced after all, _his world_ was ending! 

Gladis remained calm, setting the last page aside to level Eric with her undivided attention. 

“She likes the place, it’s near some very good schools, and I’m sure you could wager the cost of moving, of buying or renting a new place, at least the first few months on such short notice...”

It was incredible, how a few words could make the world stop moving. Eric felt a sudden seizing chill in his veins, a sensation he could only assume one must have felt when they died. Which he would do, surely, before this was all over. With the earth just waiting to open up and swallow him whole.

“She, his misstr— she _likes_ the place. And she’s…”

“Expecting, I would assume. I’m sorry to say it, but it may give you some leverage. Maybe he’ll even pay out above the market value. It really is a nice home, Eric.”

He couldn’t speak, but he finally found himself looking up from where his gaze had been this entire time, just to the left of Gladis, on a painting that hung on her office wall. 

At this angle he could just about see his reflection in it. He looked away, toward the window and out into the parking lot a few stories below. It was full and, for a blistering moment, he thought of every car in the lot and their drivers, all of them getting divorced just like him. At the ripe age of 31, getting divorced from a man he’d thought would be his forever. That they’d raise their kids in that old renovated farmhouse, a relic of a time when suburban roads had once been wheat and corn fields. When the air must have smelled greener, even in imaginings if not in reality.

Yes, there would be children raised in that house. But they wouldn’t be Eric’s, and he knew then what his answer would be, even as it broke what little was left of his heart.

“Thank you,” he said, unsure for what reason. He pulled on his Composed Face, the one he’d wear when a recipe was going thoroughly and thunderously to hell, or when the camera was live (in one way or another,) when the content had to go up despite all the turmoil that could sometimes storm within him. 

“Thank you, Gladis.” He finally met her eye, what he hoped was a confident smile on his face. “You know, I’ve always been complimented for my tastes...”

  
  


—

The movers were waiting out on the curb while Eric walked through the house with their driver. Nothing, it turns out, was going in the truck. Maybe a few boxes of his clothes, though Eric’s Mama had been through the week prior and had helped take what she’d thought would best be sent home to Georgia, or into storage, for the time being. The rest was up to Eric, and he found that besides his camera equipment and the vintage bubble gum pink stand mixer he’d gotten as a college graduation gift nothing else needed to go with him. Everything in the house had memories of _him_ in them. Even the desk, in the front corner with the potted geranium on top. They’d made a kind of love against it, enough times that the one leg on the right had to be supported by a stack of food magazines. Eric had never gotten around to fixing it.

  
He left the key chain there on the desk. It had only held the house key, the one to the gate that led to the street out back, and to the room where Eric had to hide jokingly his in-progress baked goods lest they be eaten before their time. It didn’t really matter now. On his way out he took the room in for one last time. The geraniums (a gift from _him_ ) still sat in one of Lardo’s handmade butt planters, complete with a dimple, and a bit of texture—for the hair. He turned it over with a detached sense of completion, dirt and all falling to the floor. When it was done dusting the front room with soil he tucked the well-sculpted ass under his arm and shut the door firmly on his way out.


End file.
